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Thursday, November 22, 2007

Saratoga Springs, NY--The Hall of Fame nominations ballot arrived in the mail Monday. Is it that time already? Can Eclipse Award ballots be far behind?

The answers are yes and no, like the entire process itself. So many worthy nominees; so little time to get them all in at once.

My first inclination was to not add to an already worthy list. The H of F rule is that horses and horsemen nominated but not elected in the past three years automatically return on next year’s ballot.

That‘s entirely fair. If you made the cut once but failed to enter; try, try and try again. There are no losers on the list. It’s the reason why all those TV award-show presenters say: “And the Fill-In-The-Award-Here Goes To…”

How’d you like a horse trained by Dale Baird or Gary Jones or Mel Stute or Robert Wheeler? Me, too.

Were you not entertained by the performances of Best Pal and Housebuster and Lure and Manila?

Don’t you like mares that shave, such as Inside Information, Silverbulletday, Open Mind and Sky Beauty?

That’s enough to consider, enough to make a horse-lover’s head hurt.

So how do you choose between Maple, a winner of nearly 4,400 races, and Craig Perret, a winner of exactly that number, many “by appointment only?”

Or were Romero’s rides on Go for Wand and the pressure of Personal Ensign’s winning streak, ending with that indelible Breeders’ Cup over Derby heroine Winning Colors, good enough to seal the deal? How about Alex Solis’s work on Classic/Dubai World Cup winner Pleasantly Perfect. Snow Chief, too. Either way, no argument.

The great trainers are always hardest for me to separate. How is the winner of 9,418 races through last October not in the Hall of Fame? And I don’t care if Dale Baird saddled all of them in my back yard. They count!

Gary Jones? He was 18 percent effective in stakes company, the developer of Turkoman and Best Pal and Quiet American. Quiet American? He won the Cigar Mile when it was the NYRA Mile, in 1990.

Everybody remembers Stute’s work with Snow Chief, but how soon we forget Bobby Wheeler, if we ever knew him. In 1960, when C.V. Whitney was America’s leading owner, it was Wheeler who won tons of stakes money with Tompion and the fillies Silver Spoon and Bug Brush.

Bug Brush? She set a world record beating males in the San Antonio. Wheeler won 18 stakes with those two fillies that year. And when racing began to grade its stakes in 1976, Wheeler won 25 percent of those he entered. No wonder Greentree and Nelson Bunker Hunt hired him, too.

That would make him a sort of back-in-the-day Pletcher. Todd Pletcher? With current earnings of over $138-million, fourth all-time, he’s not eligible until 2020. Riddle that for a minute.

So I’m thinking this is easy. Plenty to think about already. How impertinent to add more names to those lists.

Parenthetically, what if Midnight Lute does win Saturday’s Cigar Mile? Does he upset Lawyer Ron, the protem handicap champion? Excuse the digression.

In their zeal to make the process easier, the Hall of Fame people provided more information to nominators; a Top 100 list of trainers, jockeys, and horses, both active and inactive. But the committee actually made the decision process harder, confusing voters with all these facts.

Among the Top 100 trainers listed by earnings, sitting at No. 5 is Bob Baffert. Right, he’s not in the Hall of Fame, and he’s eligible. Got to nominate him.

But wait. What about Jerry Hollandorfer? Would there even be a Northern California circuit without him? Now look all the way down to No. 29. Are you kidding me? Carl Nafzger? He doesn’t have Baffert’s numbers, but he doesn’t have Baffert’s owners, either.

(I know I’m in the minority, but I must vote my Eclipse conscience: Curlin for Horse of Year; Nafzger for Trainer of the Year. Why? Because at the end of the day, Nafzger accomplished more working with a little less. And I‘m a huge Street Sense fan).

Already mentioned Baird. But racing’s third winningest trainer, King Leatherbury, is eligible, as is Richard Hazelton, fifth on the all-time winners list. Will they, too, be victims of geography?

A glance at the Top 100 money earning jockeys shows Edgar Prado right behind Solis at No. 7, and he’s eligible. And did you know that Garrett Gomez, the new all-time single-season stakes king, is eligible, too.

At No. 35, nine slots behind Gomez, is Chris Antley. Does anyone deny his Hall of Fame talent? Or will a tragic off-track life and death be his legacy? Which begs the question, what about the eligible Patrick Valenzuela?

Don’t know if anyone’s thought of this, but if 500 home runs is one benchmark for entering the MLB Hall of Fame, so should members of the 6,000-win club, especially since only 15 jockeys have done it. Yet, David Gall (7,396), Larry Snyder, Carl Gambardella and, most recently, Mario Pino, are not Hall of Famers despite their qualifications.

It is with a measure of excitement and trepidation for my future workload, that I add these names (one per category limit) to the 2008 list of Hall of Fame nominees: Trainer: Carl Nafzger (Baffert next year, I promise). Jockey: Edgar Prado. Contemporary Male: Maybe Tiznow, maybe not. (Consecutive Classics loom large, an 8-for-15 career mark doesn’t). Female: Enough already.

Over the years virtually all commentary from turf writers has been on forthcoming stake races, certain thoroughbreds, top trainers, Hall of Fame nominees, Eclipse Award nominess, et cetera. Little, if anything, on how to improve the industry or how to get more people involved in racing.

All the ink is directed at horses and people who enter a racetrack through the backstretch, not the people who enter a racetrack through the front entrance, having already paid for parking and admission.

There is nothing wrong with writing about the horse and those involved with the ownership and training, but it is the bettor that is the engine that drives racing (along with slot revenue, unfortunately).

Now closing in on my fifth decade of wagering on the horses, I have yet to appreciate how the Hall of Fame or the Eclipse Awards entices me, or other people to go to a racetrack to gamble.

And there is something else that eludes me: how lopsided the industry is. According to Daily Racing Form, there are close to 50,000 races run each year involving 500,000 horses. How many trainers are involved? I don’t know, but I did the following: assumed that ten horses were the average per race and that the average trainer trained thirty horses per race. Doing the math, I arrive at 1,600 trainers, probably to high (probably an illogical approach also). So, lets go with 1,200 trainers.

Now, how many trainers are winning all the stake races in the country? Twelve, fifteen? Thus, one percent of all trainers are winning all the big purses, receiving all the hype, and getting the most ink; and, eighteen or so jockeys the same. Name another industry where so few have such control?

Today and the coming weekend, there are numerous stake races across this country, and not one of these stake races will be profitable, meaning that the takeout from handle and signal fees will not cover the purse - all will be financial disasters. So, why isn’t the purse money better distributed, so that more owners/trainers win, are profitable, and are able to acquire thoroughbreds; since, only one percent of trainers now win most of the stake races?
I ask this for another reason also: I have yet to determine the difference between a claiming race and a stake race, as the horses in both type races look the same to me, run the same, create the same excitement or lack thereof, and payoffs can be huge or small with either. Oh, there is one difference: I find the claiming races easier to handicap.

Hall of Fame and Eclipse Award nominees obviously come out of that one percent group also.

There’s much in your comment as to be fodder for a future column. For now, however, there’s something I can’t let stand: If you include me in a group of turf writers that has not written about the plight of horseplayers and/or how to improve various aspects of the industry, you either have not been paying attention to my efforts since 1977 or you’re being disingenuous. I sincerely hope it’s the former.

Actually, I must defend a clear majority of my colleagues who, on balance, do a better job on “issues” than the mainstream media does on their’s. If only it were the other way around, perhaps the Empire wouldn’t be falling.

Teresa,

The piece was an unexpected consequence vis a vis Thanksgiving, although that did occur to me as I was writing it, not before. Either way, thanks for the thought and your generosity of spirit. Hope you had a great American holiday!

Mr. Pricci: Thoroughbred racing is tanking. Without slot revenue it would be out of business several years ago.

Consider the following: The banner of the vast majority of racetracks across this Dubya led country is: Racetrack and card Games, Races and slots, Racing and casinos, Racecourse and slots, Racetrack and gaming, Racing and casino.

Magna, owners of Gulfstream and Pimlico are selling real estate to keep meeting the payroll. Churchill Downs sold Hollywood Park to meet the payroll for this year; and they are praying that the slots at Fair Grounds will bring in enough money to keep them going.

Again, thoroughbred racing is heading south. Why?
Because you and your fellow turf writers are not doing enough to bring to the fore the obvious reason why racetracks are going insolvent: the purses are to extravagant!!!!!!

There is no excuse for any racetrack to be losing money. How can they, when they merely take a cut of the pot, being not at risk for anything.

What has mired NYRA in debt is their total disregard for operating within budget with their obscene six-figure purses. Why is it necessary to offer a six-figure purse when it will be a financial disaster?
Do you think that Churchill Downs today, 11/23, made money with the purses they offered?

Aside, where is an advertising/marketing program to introduce racing to the unknowing?

I am seventy years old, and I have been there, seen it, and done it. And, whether you have comeforth with verbiage in the past in support of what, I don’t know, today I know that racing is in deep pucky; and I don’t read or hear any turf writers doing a damn thing about it.

Why track management, coast-to-coast, seems compelled to offer six-figure purses to attract horses has got me mystified, when bettors could careless. All bettors want is a full field of horse, be it claiming or stake horses. People go to the races to gamble, not to watch a specific race with a media hyped horse. Why is this so difficult to understand? Is it perhaps that breeders and owners sit on the boards of the various racetracks? What has happened to trying to operate profitably?

Again, where to hell is the advertising/marketing that will promote racing as an alternative to casino gambling; to get the people in front of slot machines 500 yards from the racetrack to get of their butts and go bet on the races?

For the umpteenth time, the attraction in the betting window, not the horse. Hello?

While you eloquently represent the interest of the bettor, what about the people behind the scenes? How do your proposal regarding cutting purses affect trainers, backstretch workers, jockey, etc.? With every purse reduction, so is their income reduced.

I am all for supporting betting interests, as they are what keep the game going. But not at the expense of the people who take care of, ride, and train the horses.

How can a great like Dave Gall not be in the hall of fame. I know he is not known like a Pat Day but yet his record speaks for itself. He is 5th on all time win list and on more than one occasion ahs one 8 out 10 on a card. Lets put politics aside and vote for the ones that have earned it.

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